Livestock ordinance to change

Six chickens, no roosters, in the backyard, with permission from the neighbors.

That is the gist of the possible new language for the livestock ordinance discussed in a special Creston City Council work session Tuesday.

Any changes to the ordinance will involve a public hearing and three readings of the ordinance before the council votes to adopt it. City clerk Lisa Williamson said the public hearing is not always required, but the council likes to hold one for every change to give citizens an opportunity to express concerns. For changes with little controversy, the council can waive the second and third readings. The ordinance would then go into effect once published in newspaper.

The council met with City Attorney Marc Elcock and Iowa State University Extension Field Specialist Eric Christianson to craft an addition to the current livestock ordinance to create a permit process for Creston residents to keep chickens inside city limits.

Recently Elcock informed the council that the current ordinance, which requires residents ask the city council before owning livestock, was not in line with Iowa code. The power to grant a variance actually belongs to the board of adjustment, not the council.

The rewritten ordinance will include language to change the procedure for requesting a livestock variance to bring it before the board of adjustment instead of the city council. For residents, this will add a $100 cost to the process to cover things such as publication notices since the board of adjustment does not meet on a schedule and must be convened in order to hear a variance request.

The change in the ordinance will not affect residents whose livestock are grandfathered from before the original ordinance was created.

The council had become concerned with the increasing instances of livestock disputes brought before the council where they were essentially asked to police interactions between neighbors.

“Right now we do it on a case-by-case basis, we’d like to get something a little more structured,” Mayor Gabe Carroll said.

The new section of the ordinance will draw from current ordinances in Nevada and Osceola, providing specific guidelines for where residents can own chickens and the process for obtaining a permit. The permit application will have a $25 administrative cost to cover the time and resources spent by the city in processing it and will be good for three years. There will also be a process for revoking the permit if the resident does not comply with the provisions set forth in the ordinance.

The council deliberated ideas such as allowing poultry instead of just chickens but decided not to include that due to the difference in noise level.

Whether or not to require permission from neighbors was the most debated subject in the discussion. Council member Matt Levine was concerned that one neighbor with a grudge could stop a resident who was abiding by all of the other requirements.

“The only thing I’m not a huge fan of is neighbor approval,” he said. “To me any petty neighbor could torpedo that in a heartbeat.”

Carroll said involving the neighbors could have a positive outcome.

“Sometimes you might have a neighbor that can throw a wrench in things, but at the same time this might be something else that gets people to actually talk to their neighbors,” he said.

In the end, City Administrator Mike Taylor found a compromise by saying they could use language that will grant a permit to those whose neighbors agree and those whose neighbors do not can apply to the board of adjustment for a variance.

Taylor and Elcock will work on the exact wording for the changes to the ordinance. Taylor said it could be ready to present to the council as early as the May 21 council meeting.